Privacy Policy

1. Our Commitment to You

Hands & Feet Project, Inc. (“Hands & Feet Project”) is a Tennessee-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and an accredited member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), dedicated to protecting vulnerable children, preserving their families, and empowering their communities in Haiti. Donors, sponsors, volunteers, subscribers, and website visitors entrust us with personal information, and we take that trust seriously.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use and share it, and the choices available to you. It applies to handsandfeetproject.org, our sponsor portal, our giving and child/classroom sponsorship programs, our email and text communications, and our offices and events (collectively, our “Services”).

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Contact information: name, organization or church affiliation, mailing address, phone number, and email address.
• Payment information: credit/debit card number and expiration date, bank account or ACH details, and billing address, collected only as needed to process a transaction.
• Sponsorship information: child or classroom sponsorship selections, correspondence and messages exchanged with sponsored children and families, and sponsor-portal account credentials.
• Donation history and giving designations.
• Communications you send us: prayer requests, comments, questions, survey responses, and mission-trip inquiries.
• Information you provide when subscribing to our newsletter, email list, or text (SMS) updates.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

When you visit handsandfeetproject.org or use our sponsor portal, we, and our service providers, automatically collect certain technical information through cookies and similar tools, including IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, referring and exit pages, and approximate location. See “Cookies and Online Tracking” below.

2.3 Information from Third Parties

• Payment processors and donation platforms used to complete a gift.
• Our sponsor-portal provider, which facilitates sponsor-to-child correspondence.
• Social media platforms, if you interact with us through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or similar channels.
• Publicly available information you have made available about yourself online.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Process donations, pledges, and sponsorship payments, and issue tax receipts and acknowledgments.
• Facilitate sponsor correspondence with children, families, and programs in Haiti.
• Communicate with you, respond to inquiries, send giving receipts, and share ministry updates, prayer requests, and newsletters.
• Operate and improve our website, sponsor portal, and programs.
• Maintain accurate financial and donor records for accounting, audit, and legal compliance.
• Prevent fraud and protect the security of our Services.
• Comply with applicable laws and respond to legal process if needed.

4. How We Share Your Information

Hands & Feet Project does not sell, rent, lease, or trade your personal information to or with any other organization for their independent use. The identity of our donors is kept confidential, and we use donor information only to further HFP’s own ministry activities and purposes.

We share information only as needed to operate our ministry, and only with:

• Service providers: payment processors, our sponsor-portal platform, email and text delivery platforms, and accounting or database providers, each of whom may use your information only to perform services for us.
• Professional advisors: our auditors, attorneys, and consultants, as needed.
• Legal and safety purposes: to comply with the law, respond to legal process, or protect the safety of children, staff, or the public.
• Business continuity: in the unlikely event of a merger, reorganization, or transfer of HFP’s operations, your information may transfer as part of that transition, subject to this Policy.

5. Your Choices as a Donor or Sponsor

• Anonymity: You may ask that a gift be recorded anonymously. We will honor that request in any public acknowledgment, while still maintaining the confidential internal record required for accounting and tax purposes.
• Opt out of solicitation: You may ask to be removed from mail, email, phone, or text solicitations at any time. We will still send transactional communications tied to an active gift or sponsorship.
• Opt out of recognition: You may ask that your name be left off donor lists, annual reports, or other public recognition materials.
• Honoring your intent: When you designate a gift for a specific purpose, we use it as designated. If that purpose can no longer be fulfilled as you intended, we will redirect the gift to the most closely related purpose consistent with your original intent.
• Timely acknowledgment: We provide timely, accurate gift acknowledgments and receipts.

To exercise any of these choices, contact us using the information in “Contact Us” below.

6. Protecting the Privacy of Sponsored Children and Families

Through child and classroom sponsorship, we share photos, updates, and correspondence about children and families served in Haiti with sponsors, in order to build the relationship sponsorship is built on.

We take care to protect the safety and dignity of the children and families in our care: we limit identifying details shared publicly, train staff and volunteers in child-safeguarding practices, and ask sponsors to treat information about a sponsored child or family as confidential and not to republish it publicly without our consent.

Sponsor correspondence exchanged through our sponsor portal is reviewed as part of our standard child-protection practices.

7. Cookies and Online Tracking

We and our service providers, including Google Analytics, use cookies and similar technologies on our website to understand how visitors use our site and to improve your experience. You can control cookies through your browser settings; if you disable cookies, some site features may not work as intended. We do not currently respond to browser “do-not-track” signals.

8. Text Message (SMS) Communications

If you opt in to receive text updates, such as our weekly prayer text for Haiti, message and data rates may apply and message frequency varies. Consent to receive texts is never a condition of any purchase or donation. Reply STOP to opt out at any time or HELP for assistance.

9. Children’s Online Privacy

Our Services are intended for adults, particularly parents, guardians, donors, and sponsors. We do not knowingly collect personal information online directly from children under 13 without parental consent. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us information through our website without parental consent, contact us and we will delete it.

This is distinct from the program information we hold about children served by our ministry in Haiti, which we collect through our casework and child-protection processes rather than directly from children online, and which is addressed in Section 6 above.

10. Data Security

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access. Card numbers are encrypted, used solely for payment processing, and are not stored on HFP’s own servers. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. Data Retention

We retain donor and sponsor information for as long as needed to maintain our relationship with you and to fulfill our recordkeeping, tax, and legal obligations, consistent with our Document Retention and Destruction Policy. You may request deletion of your information, subject to records we are required to retain by law or for legitimate accounting purposes.

12. Your Privacy Rights

Hands & Feet Project is a nonprofit organization, and most U.S. state consumer-privacy laws, including Tennessee’s, do not apply to nonprofits. As a matter of practice and trust, we will nonetheless honor reasonable requests to access, correct, or delete the personal information we hold about you, or to opt out of communications, when you contact us as described below.

13. International Operations

HFP is based in the United States, and the personal information we collect is held and processed in the U.S. Because our ministry operates in Haiti, certain program information, such as sponsorship correspondence, is also shared with our Haiti-based staff and partners as needed to deliver our programs.

14. Links to Other Sites

Our Services may link to third-party websites, including our sponsor-portal provider and payment processors. This Policy does not apply to those sites, and we encourage you to review their privacy practices.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. We will post the revised Policy on our website with an updated effective date.

16. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Policy, or would like to exercise any of the choices described above, please contact us:

Mail: Hands & Feet Project, Inc., PO Box 682105, Franklin, TN 37068
Email: info@handsandfeetproject.org
Phone: (877) 870-6175

Hands & Feet Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 20-1368997) and an accredited member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).